Barnes
by icearrows1200
Summary: Often known as the "Bomb-Guy" of Kakariko Village, Barnes is not often a person held in high regard. But he, too, watches the events play through his quaint town, whether it is healing from Twilight or welcoming strangers. WIP. Please R&R. A study on Barnes' character.
1. Chapter 1

It was an odd sort of blanket of darkness that covered the town. He didn't notice it was there until he blinked, and suddenly there were people screaming in terror, running for their lives- running, futilely.

He didn't have time to react, didn't have a split second to run to save his bomb shop before he heard the cry of his apprentice, an explosion, and saw a black, lumbering creature that made his heart leap from his chest clambered from the window towards other beasts.

Bodies of those he knew, those he had interacted with only minutes before were strewn like autumn leaves over the ground, and suddenly the Shaman was calling his name, beckoning him, and Barnes felt his legs take over. The Sanctuary could hold them.

Only mere minutes had passed since these beasts had appeared, but an eternity's worth of fear had done its worst on him. He stopped to catch his breath, ignorant of the mortified children huddled in the center. All he could think of, could care about, was the resounding click of the Shaman locking the door soundly to isolate them from the terror outside.

"What?" Was all he could say.

"The Shadow Beasts," The Shaman spoke simply, no fear wavering in his voice, "I should have known."  
"If you knew this was going to happen," He ran a shaking hand through his hair and slinked to the ground, back to the wall, "then you should've said somethin', eh? Look out there- they're all dead," He sat on his knees and peered out the window, "We're the only ones left."

The Shaman said nothing, and turned to the children huddled around one another. There were five of them including the Shaman's daughter, but the remaining four were unknown to Barnes himself.

The other girl besides Luda was shaking so violently it was a miracle she hadn't fallen to the floor yet, "Does- does this thing lock up safely, Sir?"

The Shaman nodded.

_Why couldn't he remember his name? Was it Rengal…? Renardo? R…. it started with an R, that was for sure._

"Who're the brats?"

Renado- _that was his name_- eyed him disapprovingly, "They came with the Beasts, Barnes; they had been captured in the Ordona Province. I thought it right to save them."

Barnes was affronted, "What about the rest of the village? Ain't they important, too?" He gestured to the children, "For all you know, they could be Beasts in disguise."

The children cowered.

"I doubt that very highly, Barnes."

"Well, they could."

There was a chilling silence only broken by the heavy footsteps of the Beasts outdoors. Luda made use of herself by attempting to comfort the foreign children, holding them close, rubbing their backs, and somehow maintaining her senses. Barnes sighed and returned to looking out the window.

Those hideous, fearsome, monsters of the night were lugging their massive bodies around, reveling in the darkness. He realized he hadn't even taken a moment to wonder where they had come from or what they were doing here; it didn't make sense why these creatures wanted anything to do with this quaint village.

Another explosion in the distance; those dratted things must've gotten into his bomb stock. Hopefully it did a number on them, but somehow, he doubted it did. He pointed to the blonde child, "What's your name?"

The boy's eyes widened and he gripped the bench tightly.

"What, kid, don't you speak Hylian?"

After a bitter pause and a deep breath, "C-Colin."

Barnes was unimpressed. The boy spoke Hylian, alright, and with an accent, too- the kid was obviously from Ordon.

"Huh," he pointed to the others, "Are these your siblin's?"

Colin shook his head, "No, sir. They're my..." There was an uneasy pause, and the boy seemed to be unable to think of the word for a brief moment, "Neighbors. Talo and Malo are siblings, and Beth is an only child."

Barnes looked from Colin to the rest of them. Their clothes were strange in style, and they looked rather homely with their wild hair and cloth belts. Not to mention the odd names.

Barnes let out an unsatisfied _hmpf,_ and returned to watching the Beasts as Renado spoke to the children.

"Do not fret, for we will not be here long. There is food in storage below-"

A violent, electric sound broke from what seemed to be all parts of the room, painfully loud in the eerie, lulling darkness. Beth screeched highly, Talo's hand flying instinctively to her mouth to cover it.

"You'll get us all caught!"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

"SHUT UP! THEY'LL HEAR US!"

The sound of rustling made a commotion with the still prominent _buzz _of whatever had entered the room.

"Barnes!" Renado whispered, "Calm the children!"

As Renado stood up to look for the foreign source, Barnes began shaking his hands rampantly in the air, "Uhh hey, tots! Quiet down or those things out _there_ will know we're in _here." _He gave an interrogative thumbs up, and after a few last words, the two settled down.

There was a second burst of sound, but Beth managed to hold her tongue.

A ball of flashing purple light made its way overhead, spinning off the walls, ricocheting off the ceiling. The children tucked their legs in, and suddenly, the buzzing mass was gone.

A minute of silence, "What _was _that thing?"

"I didn't see it, Talo." Barnes was surprised at the maturity of the youngest speaker: Malo, the younger brother of Talo, though the two hardly looked similar.

"I believe it's gone," Luda said insightfully, dark hair messily out of place.

"Well it better not be comin' back, er we'll be done for," Barnes pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Barnes," a stern, dark scold, uncharacteristic of Renado, "Please refrain from speaking in a way that frightens the children."

"Cripes, it's not my fault they're lettin' the darkness get the best of 'em," he gestured to the window, "They ain't even that scary." There was a screech from down the road, and the company winced.

Luda whispered, voice shaken, "That was Mrs. Owlin." It was hardly a moment before the girl- usually so stoic- was wracked with sobs of fear. Her father's arm encircled her shoulders, and she stained his robes with salty tears. Barnes felt a foreign pang in his chest.

"She was- was..." A hiccup.

"I know, dear," Renado looked at Barnes, made brief eye contact, "I know..."

The rest of the children had begun to cry, and all Barnes could do was groan. So much for staying quiet.

Beth was on a rampant panic, clutching to Renado, wild and frantic, "I don't want to die! My mother and father don't know where I am! I need to tell them I love them!" She became weak and sunk to the ground, "I didn't even...s-say goodbye."

Tears stained her face in the dark, sobs echoing through the Sanctuary and Village.

Even Barnes had to admit this was difficult to watch, tortuous to see the young so terrified for their lives.

"Hush, child, you will not die," Renado smiled comfortingly, "The Sanctuary is a very safe place."

It was odd how calm the Shaman could remain during a time like this- even a man with years of wisdom _must _know that their lives were treading on a piece of string. If he was only ensuring their safety for the appeasement of a few country bumpkins who didn't even what province they were in, then the joke was on Renado; being nice won't buy you another ten minutes of life.

The very young one with the increasingly deep voice spoke up, "At least you're not out there," he gestured and stepped to the window, and Barnes looked out yet again, hesitating none to cringe. A few corpses continued to be hideous reminders of the disaster, while others had disappeared, perhaps inexplicably vanishing, maybe becoming something else.

"The kid's right," Barnes noted, "You can take all my rupees and burn my shop to the ground- I don't care- just don't send me out for tea'n biscuits with them monsters."

"Malo, do you remember when we used to hide in the loft from Mother? Th-that's kind of like now, so st-stay away from the window," Talo was shaking, speaking hardly above a whisper.

Malo returned the look with disdain, "Now's not the time to suddenly show concern for me."

Talo was appalled, "Now's the perfect time!"

"I'm safe right here."

How old was this kid? Five? Six? Barnes had to agree that stepping away from the window would be a good precaution; two more beasts had appeared from around the corner and were lurking sickeningly close to the Sanctuary.

Malo huffed and rolled his eyes heavenward. Barnes let the child stand at his side, staring out the window without a change in expression. Talo, despite being an emotional wreck, was pinned to Renado's side like a burr while his brother observed the dangerous, outside world.

"Barnes." He had almost thought the speaker was Renado, but was utterly shocked when he discovered the voice had come from the boy beside him.

Barnes looked at Malo for a brief second, and then turned back to the window. Something about his stare was dark and ominous, and strangely mature.

"You know, kid," Barnes spoke under his breath, "Most people your age would refer to me as 'Sir'."

Malo was not humbled, "Either I'm not most people, or you're not worthy of the title."

Surprisingly, Barnes was not at all offended, "Alright, kid, but your brother is havin' a breakdown. You might want to-"

"You're not frightened at all, are you?" Malo had said it so quietly, Barnes almost didn't hear it.

"What?" He blinked, then waved his hand dismissively, "Nah, it's not like them monsters can _actually _get _me_-"

"No-" Malo sighed, obviously frustrated, "It's not that you're unafraid because of common sense, it's because you're thrilled, isn't it? Even though your townsfolk are freakish beasts or corpses rotting on the ground, you have the privilege of watching everything you hate and love be destroyed before your eyes from a…" he shrugged, "...relatively safe distance."

What _was _this kid doing? Did he try and decipher people as a hobby? Maybe that's what they did down south.

He was speaking so very softly, and Barnes pretended not to listen, "When they destroyed your bombs, wasn't it great? You're full of so much fury that it's exhilarating. And now here we are, locked in a centuries old safe-house, hoping that some miracle will save our lives."

There wasn't anything to deny. "It doesn't mean I'm not frightened," Barnes replied after a beat of silence, "I'm just like you- them hideous things are terrifyin'."

"Those are two different things, Barnes."

"What are two different things?"

Malo was stoically returning to his brother, of whom had his face smeared with an uncharacteristic relief. Before reaching Talo, the child turned around towards Barnes yet again, "We're not so different, Barnes."

Barnes doubted that.


	2. Chapter 2

_Drat those Gorons._

Here he was, shoveling coal with tired, aching arms, for the remote possibility that he might actually have enough resources to make an estranged bomb.

Almost the entire town was dead, and those selfish rock-eating brutes were keeping to themselves like they owned the mountain.

Perhaps if he had been given more materials, he would have better bombs, and they might not even be in this situation.

Speaking of situations, that green kid- _Link, wasn't it? Why was he so bad with names?- _was supposedly trekking his gallant self up the mountain trail- what a ridiculous proposition! The Gorons weren't about to let Barnes himself, their closest business partner, even near their goods. And this guy, this _kid, _was about to wrestle his way up an active volcano for whatever he was after.

Link _had _just saved Colin only moments before from a ferocious beast, so the kid did have promise. It was all very thrilling. Maybe Malo, in his psychedelic mind-reading, had been right. Despite the inconveniences and wrought terror scrambling through the village like the plague, something had actually happened for once.

It was okay to be thrilled, wasn't it?

He heard the door swing open, and Barnes dropped his shovel with a resounding _clang._

"Mr. Barnes, sir?"

He peered around the corner and felt relief wash over him, "Cripes, Luda, you scared me. I thought you were one of them beasts again."

He bounded down the steps, soot-covered arms forming angles at his side, careful not touch his marginally clean clothes.

Luda habitually tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear, upholding her confidence through eye-contact. "Mr. Barnes, my father would like to know if you would be so kind as to take the shift of watching Colin through the night."

"Eh?"

"Beth and I are going to sleep, and seeing as you're an adult, my father figured you could watch over Colin and see if he's well."

"Oh..." Barnes scratched the back of his neck, "Gee, hun, I don't know," he gestured up the steps, "I've got work to do."

Luda gave him an incredulous look, folding her arms tightly against her chest. He was not at all surprised to see her take control; she was very much like her father.

_"Well,_ I suppose you'll want me to stay awake _all _night while some kid snores and catches Z's beside me?"

Luda nodded.

"Am I going to have to _cater _to him? Because I don't know a _thing_ about kids, and you should know that more than anyone. I ain't gonna wipe the cold sweat from his brow and tell him he's gonna be alright- I'm not even sure if anyone does that, anyway."

Luda shook her head vigorously, "No, Mr. Barnes, that's not what you're going to have to do."

Barnes raised an eyebrow, a key for her to continue.

"Just watch him through the night and wake up Renado if anything odd happens," She gave a hopeful smile, and Barnes found no other way to express himself than placing his hand on his forehead.

"I don't really have an option, do I?"

Exasperation, "No, Mr. Barnes."

"I bet Renado told you not to leave until I've agreed to do this, hmm?"

Luda hesitated, "...That's correct."

"Well, cripes, Luda," He wiped his hands on his work apron before untying the back and disregarding it to the side, "I guess I'll do it."

She smiled understandingly and bowed out of a respect that Barnes doubted she held for him, "I'll tell my father at once."

She turned to leave, then spun around, "Oh, and Mr. Barnes?"

"What?"

"Arrive at the inn at sunset, and I would advise bringing a book or something to keep you from being bored."

Barnes thanked Luda unthinkingly, ushering her out the door with the wave of a hand. He had a few stacks of books in the back, packaged away in boxes, isolated like a plague. He used his shovel to pry them open, coughing at the sudden cyclone of dust in the air. Kneeling over the crate, he pulled out stacks of untouched pages, things inherited like religious texts and family records; albums of poorly taken photos from his childhood _(were his freckles _really _that abundant?)_, serving as an undocumented timeline of his life; and finally, at the bottom, a few fictional and informational titles that had gone unread for so long- he couldn't even recall when he purchased them.

He tossed aside _A Fisherman's Guide for the Lanayru Province_, _An Annotated Hylian History, _a few novels about seafaring adventures in a world comprised only of oceans, and _Of the Rocks I Eat: a Goron Autobiography._

He picked up one, wiped away years of dust with his palm, opened the faded blue cover and looked for a date written anywhere. He found one on the first inside page, reading a date almost two-hundred years old.

"What?"

Flipping through the pages, he squinted to read the characters,even through his glasses. He wiped the lenses, but the lines and shapes were indistinguishable.

With a gasp of realization, it became apparent that the characters were in Ancient Hylian, an alphabet foreign to him. Few people could actually read the language in this age, and Renado was one of them- Barnes didn't strangle himself with superficial niceties like that.

Regardless, Barnes was befuddled as to how this strange piece of text actually ended up in his possession. He never remembered seeing it, and the title was unreadable, nor was there any indication this belonged to one of his family members. And oddly enough, the date on the inside cover was written in Modern Hylian, whilst the inside gave another.

Considering they were similar languages, he could probably decipher a few words, but looking at the rest would be fruitless. The other books were of no interest, so taking this to his little _rendezvous _later might actually make the time slip away a little faster, provided he could find a means of translating it.

* * *

"Hey, Renado."

"Ah. Barnes. I'm pleased Luda could convince you to come here tonight."

Barnes shut the door behind him, "Yeah, yeah, but hey," He brought the book out in front of him and presented it to Renado, holding it delicately, like a relic, "Check this out."

"What's this?"

"I found it in one of my old crates that I never get into," He peeled back the first page, "There's a date written in modern Hylian that's centuries old, but the rest is scribbled out in Ancient Hylian." Barnes was flipping through pages passionately, pointing at the foreign characters. His sudden interest surprised himself.

Renado frowned, finger tapping on his chin, "How curious. I would love to act as a translator, but now is certainly not the time." He nodded towards Luda and Beth, of whom were setting up beds to sleep in another room, "There is far too much work to be done."

"No, I mean," Barnes was anxious, inexplicably flushed in the face, then returned his gaze to the text, "Do you have a translation dictionary or something? I don't know…"

Renado closed his eyes knowingly, "You seem very interested, Barnes. It seems your interest is focused on something other than bombs."

An embarrassed chuckle, "Well, you know…" Barnes scratched the back of his neck, "It's something for me to do while I watch the kid."

"While you watch over Colin?"

Barnes took the hint, "While I watch over Colin."

"Very well," Renado opened the door, halting in the frame, "It seems this is necessary and a rather interesting mystery. I will return with a book of translations that I own. It is, however, slightly difficult to read."

Renado left swiftly, and Barnes lumbered up the stairs towards Colin's room.

* * *

The moon had risen to a peak above the Eldin Province at this hour of night, lustrous silver light casting an appearance of false daylight on the spring, and lengthy, dark shadows across Death Mountain. The village was painfully quiet without the screech and eerie footsteps of the beasts who had claimed and raided Kakariko only a day before.

Barnes, however, was enthralled by the tiny black text on the old paper before him, squinting beside the light of candles to change from dictionary to book and back again. A quill in his hand, he had scribbled rough translations below the text in question.

Ignorant of the sleeping boy in the bed next to his chair, he was beginning to understand the general flow of the language, until he came across a work that had no direct translation.

He jotted a tiny question mark beneath it, and continued.

After hours of eye-straining work, he had finished two pages before he decided to sit back and actually read the words that may give him an understanding of the inexplicable book.

_From the time I encountered this world until its near demise, I became well acquainted with the inhabitants. Their repetitive schedules, monotonous lives, the way they never ventured from that routines no matter their desires. I was saddened by their lack of motivation, because even when time repeated like the flip of an hourglass, they continued to do the same. Nothing interfered with them, there was no force on Earth powerful enough to change them. _

_Even impending doom and obvious death could not deter them._

_Perhaps that trait is admirable._

_? did not think so._

Barnes sat and stared at the text in front of him, furiously wracking his brain for the mysterious word.

He said it aloud, a whisper to the night, as if saying it would magically make it readable. Unfortunately, no such thing happened, and he sighed, defeated. Tossing the book on the nightstand like it had been the millionth draft of a love letter, he found himself staring at the boy before him.

That book didn't make a single word of sense, and he didn't want it to. The worn pages were foreign to him, unwelcome, and quite frankly, he did not feel comfortable around them. No matter how desperately he attempted, he could not remember owning it, and therefore didn't want to anymore.

Colin was fortunate for being a child. Granted, he was wounded and lying on a bed unconscious, but he didn't have to deal with so many horrible aspects of life. The innocence of childhood was something Barnes himself craved desperately, because he didn't have to be frightened by translated books, or question his entire personality, or stay up late watching over someone else because adults were responsible for those kinds of things.

Blonde strands of hair were matted to the child's forehead, parted in all sorts of direction, sticky with cold sweat. His breathing was less shallow now, as the cool night air circulated through the room. The rise and fall of his chest was so rhythmic that Barnes had grown accustomed to it, as if it were part of the room itself.

Barnes leaned back in his chair, felt his eyelids grow heavy, and when he had nearly fallen limp to the arms of sleep, a whimpering sound drew him back.

"Colin?"

Barnes sat up, squinted, and found the boy tossing and turning violently in his bed.

"Hey, quit movin' or you'll mess up your bandages."

Colin did not obey. He was muttering something incoherent, flailing in a nightmarish manner. It occurred to Barnes that he should probably alert Renado, but if all this was was a nightmare, then it would be ridiculous to wake up the entire village for that.

"Mother…."

_Oh._

That made sense. The kid _had_ to miss his parents, considering he had probably never been away from home before. He was terrified, and Barnes could not deny it.

"Kid, uh… calm down," A brief pause, "You'll be okay."

There was continuous shaking and a few more whimpers before Colin finally settled down as Barnes coaxed him a little more.

It was safe to assume that this was the worst that could happen- nightmares, that is- and Barnes could now attempt to sleep. The ominous darkness was replaced by the solace of his eyelids, and Barnes could now sleep.

_Yeah, there's a teeny reference to Majora's Mask, and I figured the book could be found because I think the Happy Mask Salesman probably never stayed in Termina after Link saved it, so his ability to time travel is plausible. But don't think into it, I just wanted to add it. It won't be used in the story later; these are just drabbles. Thanks for reading! :)_


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